Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	hear_v	pray_v	prayer_n	6,606	5	6.7733	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67472	Love and truth in two modest and peaceable letters concerning the distempers of the present times / written from a quiet and conformable citizen of London to two busie and factious shop-keepers in Coventry.	Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.	1680 (1680)	Wing W673; ESTC R38020	26,280	37

Bishop only because he is learned and condition with him not to preach or make a Doctor of the Civil Law a Bishop who is not in Orders and should not preach but govern which I think he may do what is this to you or your Party You ought to consider this and that the Bishops Revenues was never theirs nor yours nor your Predecessors nor can any man now living claim it for his It is only and most certainly Gods given to him by our Kings Predecessors and our King appoints who shall govern the Church under him and have the Churches Revenue for their reward More might be added but I am as weary of saying this as you will be to read it Now for Preaching I praise God I understand my duty both to him and my neighbour the better by hearing of Sermons And though I be defective in the performance of both for which I beseech Almighty God to pardon me yet I had been a much worse Christian if I had not frequented the blessed Ordinance of Preaching which has convinced me of my many sins past and begot such terrours of Conscience as have begot in me holy resolutions to amend my life and earnest Prayers to Almighty God the giver of all grace to enable me by his grace to perform those holy resolutions This benefit and many other like benefits I and other Christians have had by Preaching And God forbid we should ever use it so or so provoke him by our other sins as to withdraw this blessed Ordinance from us or trun it into a curse by preaching Heresie and Schism which too many have done in the late time of Rebellion and indeed now do in many Conventicles and their Auditors think such Preaching is serving God when God knows it is contrary For can you think to sit an hour in a warm Room upon an easie seat your head covered your mind at rest and your malicious humour pleased to hear your Governours scandalized and with their scandals some new needless Notions offered to your consideration and then their truth or falshood left for you to judge and determine Can you think you are at this time scrving God or satisfying your own curiosity or malicious humour doubtless not serving God Nay let it be granted that you hear nothing but truth preach'd yet I question whether the direction how you should honour and serve God be honouring and serving him For example If a Master calls his Servant and gives him positive directions what he shall do the day following and the Servant hears him with good attention but neglects to do what he is directed Can you think the hearing his Masters direction is serving him No doubtless it is not it is granted he could not have known his Masters will without hearing it but he serves him not by hearing his direction but doing his Will And the like may be observed concerning your magnifying extemp●rary Prayer by gifted men in publick and contempt of the Church Liturgy The first of which you call praying by the Spirit but doubtless it was an evil Spirit that John Lilbourn Hugh Peters and many others of your Party prayed by in the days of Cromwel the Tyrant when they prayed to God to prolong his life to streugthen his Arm and inable him with zeal and courage to perfect what he had so happily begun and make a thorow Reformation in the Church and whole Nation And in the same Prayer to libel our late vertuous King by praying to God that if he had not wholly withdrawn his grace and given him over to a reprobate sense that he would at last bring him back from his present evil Council to his great Council the present godly Parliament Thus or to this purpose was that pious and prudent King libelled in your publick extemporary Prayers and the Tyrant magnified by those that were so shameless as to call themselves the godly Party And many well-meaning people were so beguiled as to say Amen to what was thus prayed And by this means the Church Liturgy came to be abhorred by some and neglected by almost all And can you think praying thus and appointing God in their Prayers what he was to do for them and their Cause and when and by what manner and means he was to do it was honouring and serving him No doubtless God forbid that private Christians should be so tied to set Forms of Prayer as not in their retired and private devotions to make their private Confessions of their private sins to the searcher of all hearts and beg their pardon of him and pray extempore for such a measure of his assisting grace so to strengthen them that they may never relapse into those or the like sins This doubtless is to honour and serve God but this is but to honour and serve him privately And if I be mistaken in my private Prayers my mistakes concern only my self and end there But it is not so in your Publick extemporray Prayers the mischief is not ended when the Prayers are And that these should justle out the well-known and approved Prayers of the Church which were composed and so pathetically and properly worded by the assistance of Gods Spirit in many of those blessed Martyrs and Consessors whom he made his Instruments to settle and resorm the Church of England from the gross Corruptions of that of Rome I say that you and your Party should not when you consider this grieve to think it was done by you is to me a wonder and I praise God that he makes me look upon it with a thankful detestation And now good Cosin give me leave to tell you as I did your Brother in a Letter writ some years past what I do or ought in duty to do when I make my self a Member of any Christian Congregation assembled to pay reverence to Almighty God and pray and praise him according to the Injunction and Custom of our Church First We all do I am sure they that know best and are most devout do all kneel and as many as well may with their faces toward the East and in that order and humble posture and with one consent all make their general and humble Confession of their unworthiness to appear before God by reason of their many and grievous sins past And we beg pardon for them and his grace to serve him the remaining part of our lives with more purity and holiness And having confest and prayed thus if the Searcher of all hearts does bear witness with us that this Confession and these Prayers be sincere and that our purpose is to amend our lives and obey him better We do and may put on a modest confidence that he will assist us with his grace and be assured that he is at peace with us and loves us And this being done in an humble and ardent manner we proceed to laud and magnifie our God in a joynt repeating a part of the Psalms which are all composed of gratitude